Personhood Amendments: Coming to a Ballot Near You? (Map)

On Tuesday, Mississippi asked voters to decide whether or not to ban all abortions and many forms of contraception. The voters said no. But if anti-abortion groups get their way, there will be a host of similar measures on the ballot in 2012.

Efforts are underway in at least six states to adopt similar laws via constitutional amendments, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America, which is tracking the initiatives. The specific language varies from state to state, but all of the measures seek to redefine human life as beginning at conception. (And as my colleague Nick Baumann reports today, federal lawmakers are also circulating similar measures.)

The group California Civil Rights Foundation is trying to get an amendment on the 2012 ballot defining a “person” as “all living human beings from beginning of biological development as human organism.” In Florida, the anti-abortion advocates at American Life League and Personhood USA have launched a signature-gathering effort for a similar initiative that would grant rights starting at “the beginning of the biological development of that human being.” The Montana ProLife Coalition is also gathering signatures for a ballot measure that would amend the state constitution to define “person” to encompass “the stage of fertilization or conception.”

The Nevada Pro-life Coalition, meanwhile, has taken a slightly different tack that would nevertheless achieve the same end, with an effort to outlaw “the intentional taking of a prenatal person’s life” via an amendment to the state constitution. The measure would guarantee the “unalienable right to life” of “every human being at all stages of biological development before birth.”

In Ohio, the state’s attorney general rejected an effort to get a personhood measure on the ballot in 2011, because he felt the summary of the measure offered by anti-abortion activists was not “fair and truthful.” The activists have already pledged to try again for 2012 election. Similarly, the Oregon Human Life Amendment Committee tried to get a measure on the ballot for 2010 that would guarantee protection for “all human beings…including their unborn offspring at every state of their biological development, including fertilization.” The measure got tied up in litigation, but anti-abortion advocates are trying again for 2012.

An anti-abortion activist in Alaska attempted to get a personhood measure on the ballot for 2011, one that stated that “the natural right to life and body of the unborn child supercedes [sic] the statutory right of the mother to consent to the injury or death of her unborn child.” But the state’s attorney general rejected it, finding that the language was “clearly unconstitutional.” In Colorado, voters rejected a ballot measure to define human life starting “at the beginning of biological development” in 2010 by a 3 to 1 margin. Voters there also rejected a similar effort in 2008.

Map produced by Tasneem Raja

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate